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What to include in the planning dream notebook

Cheryl in Ft. Collins, CO — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:46:38 GMT

In doing a lot of research for my dream build I accumulated a lot of info on best practices for green/sustainable methods and materials that I keep as a separate file. New products are continually coming on the market and some are truly new, inovative, and sustainable while others have changed nothing but their marketing campain. Anyway, might be a good one for you to add if that is part of your goal.

Foreclosure strip-outs

Faye in Marseilles, IL — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:57:17 GMT

I haven't heard of anyone being arrested, but the one who would be arrested would be the seller, not the buyer.

Andersen, Pella, or JELD-WEN

CoolGuy in Murphy/Wylie, TX — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:12:15 GMT

The builder I have gives me two options for my home in dfw area: Krestmark or Alenco for my vinyl windows. Do you have any experience with them? Who do you guys recommend? Thanks.

MASONERY/STONE FIREPLACE

mark in altoona, PA — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:13:22 GMT

I agree fireplaces are not efficient but you can not beat the comfort and charm of a real system.I will be installing a 48" wood burning fireplace in the great room of my log home but I have installed a wood stove in my basement to supplement my heating needs. Its all in what your personal tastes are.

Thanks,

Mark

What to include in the planning dream notebook

Dustin in South Jordan, UT — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:20:06 GMT

So I am in the planning stages of my dream notebook.   My question is those that have done this before what is your index or subjects that are included in the notebook?

So my experience in construction has been this.

Remodeled 2 homes (stripped down to the frame and redid everything)
Finished 2 basements (one I did all the work and one I acted as a general)
Had a GC friend build our house (he gave us all the old invoices of his subs)
The same GC and working together just finished a 12000 square foot commercial building

So through those experiences and not scared at all by building on my own and am putting my book together. The comment on planning the 1000 hours is so true. When the GC built our house he would suddenly call up and say. OK you have 1 week to pick out your tile, carpet, pant and cabinets.   We would run around with our head cut off trying to make good choices but ended up not getting the best deals or colors we did not like.   So before I do this I want a awesome dream book.   So here are the chapters I have so far.

1. Budgeting - On our house we built I have the budget and house plans for that.   Then I have a category with what I think we could do it for if I was doing it.

2. Contractors - through all these projects I did I have a stack of contractors and the price they gave the GC.   My goal is to have 3 subs for every bid I do and make sure they at least match the old pricing.   As a side note I have found that subs I have found on my own often are better priced than the one's the GC was using.   The ones he used I noticed he was going for ease of use not price in other words ones that required little management (which is ironic because thats what I was paying him for) so some of my subs I have used before are better.

3. Pricing - In our commercial building we were able to shave nearly 10,000 dollars on the electrical bid by buying the components ourselves.   I noticed a significant savings when I buy the supplies and hire them for the labor.   Because of all the projects I have done in the past Lowes knows and loves me and always gives me a across the board 10% discount as well.   One thing I want to do is accumulate pricing for all the supplies.   I know this would be a duanting task but plan on having a list of what I can normally get that supply for.   Then if I see a deal on something then it would be worth it to buy it in advance and sit on it.

4 Dreams and Features - This is mostly my wife but the dreaming phase of exactly what I want the new house to be like.

So thats all I have.   What am I missing?   Those of you that have done this before what additional chapters should I put in my book?

- Dustin

2010 Financing

Pat in Arnold, CA — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:03:54 GMT

I sent my loan docs off today to El Dorado Savings Bank. We'll see how it goes.

I understand from another thread that rental property now counts 100% against you and they don't offset it anymore by your rental income. Sigh... Also, I'm hearing that all banks now require (because of new FHA regulations) 6 months' reserves on all outstanding mortgages you may have, along with the mortgage you are applying for. Geeeze. What other hoops do you have to jump through!!! This is getting a bit crazy.

We can cover the 6 months' reserves, but it will just mean less money down. Fingers crossed that we qualify for the money we are wanting because of these added reserves.

Pat

Rental Properties a proverbial "ball & chain"

Pat in Arnold, CA — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:56:53 GMT

We just sent our loan docs off today to a local community bank. We own our current home and a rental home. We didn't know about the 6 month reserve, so that will certainly lesson our down payment. We'll let you know how it goes.

Pat

Need a construction loan

Pat in Arnold, CA — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:31:09 GMT

Keeping our fingers crossed. I fedex the loan docs today to El Dorado Savings. We don't anticipate any problems, but you never know in today's banking environment.

MASONERY/STONE FIREPLACE

Pat in Arnold, CA — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:27:33 GMT

May I ask why you would build a masonry fireplace? They aren't energy efficient and don't meet EPA standards.

We are installing a wood burning fireplace that meets EPA emissions of 2.3 grams of particulates per hour, heats up to 3000 SF, maximum burning time on one load is 12 hours, has a72% efficiency rating, burns 76,700 BTU per hour, and has 3 added blower vents that can be put in other rooms. AND best of all, it burns logs up to 32" long!

It's the Xtrordinair Elite 44. www.fireplacex.com

Pat

Foreclosure strip-outs

Michael in Cave Creek, AZ — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:10:50 GMT

These sales exist in Arizona also. I would not buy and remove house parts from somebody in that situation.

There have been several high profile cases here where people doing this have been arrested and charged with defrauding a secured creditor.

MASONERY/STONE FIREPLACE

mark in altoona, PA — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:18:03 GMT

I am planning on building a masonary fireplace in my log home. I have found a lot of useful information at rumford.com.

Good Luck,

Mark

Whole-House Vacuum

Dustin in South Jordan, UT — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:23:57 GMT

Thanks for posting that Matt thats what I thought but wanted to be sure. Thanks for posting that picture as well. That kind of makes my point of all this piping and the suction vacuum on the other side of the house makes for weak suction on the outlets on the other side of the house. If your going to install it like that I suggest stepping up 1 or 2 levels of power canister to compensate for that.

- Dustin

Whole-House Vacuum

Matt in Mooresville, NC — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:44:46 GMT

One of the big draws for central vac systems is for people who have allergies (which seem to be a lot of people these days), since they remove everything that is sucked up outside the house (typically the garage). Also, once you get to a certain level of house (sq. footage, finish level, etc.), it's almost expected.

I second the recommendation to not use sch. 40 pipe. I think the only reason people do this is because they can't find a supplier for the pipe, but as you said it can always be ordered online if it can't be found locally.

As far as running your trunk line, it's generally run through a crawl space/basement or attic, and then up/down the stud cavity to where it will terminate (somewhat similar to plumbing drain lines). You wouldn't want to cut framing members with a hole big enough to run the pipe horizontally through a wall, as it would seriously degrade the strength of the wall.

Foreclosure strip-outs

Faye in Marseilles, IL — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:07:02 GMT

I am shocked and amazed at the amount of ads on craigslist of people selling off pieces of their foreclosed homes. Last week there was an ad that had a multimillion-dollar home with a $100K kitchen that they were offering up everything and the kitchen sink. Basically, anything you are willing to tear out and haul away. I will be starting my landscaping soon and I have even noticed that people are tearing out their hardscaping (retaining-wall blocks, etc.) and selling that, too. Has anyone been checking out these deals and found any great bargains?

Value impact of a finished basement

Jeff in Hartland, WI — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:51:59 GMT

I'll tack my two cents worth as well. I agree that in general, finished basements are not valued the same as other square footage in the house--at least not in this market. I've seen builders try to sell three-bedroom ranch homes here that have a single bedroom on the first floor and two bedrooms in the basement. They priced them comparably to other three-bedroom ranch homes. They marketed them with square footage calculations that include the basement. And they haven't sold. Despite being on the market for more than three years. This may or may not be the case in your market.

That being said, you can get a lot of bang for your buck in a basement. Here, the key is to make sure the basement is finished to the same level of quality as the rest of the house. That means if you have stone tile in your bathrooms upstairs, and granite countertops in the kitchen, you'll need to use stone tile and granite in any bathroom or countertop in the basement. To get top dollar, you have to use the same quality trim, carpets, windows, doors, etc.as in the rest of the house.

I asked one of our many appraisers how he would value a finished basement. He told me that a basement finished at the same quality level as the rest of the house would add about a 10 to 12 percent premium to the value of the house based on comparable sales in my neighborhood. If I do most of the work myself, I can finish the basement for less than half that amount. So I'm planning to add a rec room with a small wet bar, and room for an air hockey table and a pool table; a full bath; a bedroom that we'll use as an exercise room; and a small theater/media room with stage, projector, and built-in screen. But I'm leaving plenty of room for storage too. We spent a bit extra on hardscaping when we first built the house to make sure we had a "daylight" basement, as most of the higher priced houses in our neighborhood do.

I think it might be difficult to assign a "square foot" value to a finished basement. The finished value of our house on today's market is about $200 per square foot, including land. If I add the basement square footage and the premium to the price, the value of the house drops to $183 per square foot. If I look at them separately, the value per square foot of the basement is about half that of rest of the house. But that only applies if I finish the basement with same quality materials that I used in the rest of the house. If I finish it with cheaper materials, the cost will be lower, but so will the return on my investment.

Jeff

Construction loan

Robert in Chandler, AZ — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:59:09 GMT

Hi, L:

I wrote in 2008 about this outfit and warned everyone to be very careful. Too bad you missed my post and I trust you didn't get hurt too bad.

Kind regards,

Robert

Building three homes in Weaverville

E.M. in Tryon, NC — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:35:45 GMT

You should need a permit to build the second and third houses that only a licensed contractor can acquire.

Building three homes in Weaverville

Kim in Asheville, NC — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:16:46 GMT

We 'tried' to get started in December, and the weather hit - only been able to actually get down the mountain four times in last 2.5 months! I 'hope' we are going to be able to start up again in a couple of weeks - have to let the ground dry out. We managed to get one road in and a started on site prep for one home. I have a great grader and am pleased with my relationship with a contractor who is going to let me use his subs and act as a 'consultant' as we move forward. Both new homes will be ICF! Let me know how things move and if you need names and numbers, just contact me!

Septics and Wells

Larry in Hayesville, NC — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:09:52 GMT

Libby, do you have a construction permit from the county health dept. or department of environmental services for installation of the septic system? And was the lot approved for a "standard," conventional septic system?

If so, then Phil's estimate of the septic cost is probably in the right ballpark. However, if the building lot has septic "problems," (and a lot of property in the Boone/mountain area falls into that category e.g., thin soils, rocky soils, too much clay in the soil, etc.), then you may not be approved for a conventional septic system, and may have to go a an "alternative" treatment system, which can increase the cost substantially.

Also, and you may already know this (but your message implied otherwise), in addition to all septic installations requiring county approvals, all well installations in NC have to be approved, as well, and both septic installers and well drillers must be certified by the state.

Good luck!

LJF

Building three homes in Weaverville

Phil in Asheville, NC — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:43:31 GMT

I'll be looking for foundation and framing guys soon too. Don't be afraid to post some names of the good ones...